Monday, May 30, 2005

"Hello Tian, I am a long time reader of your blog. Last week while visiting the city of Val-d'Or(Quebec) in Canada, I found the following plastic leg 'tattooed' in the front window of a tattoo parlor. In this picture, you can clearly see the character is upside down. Could it be they wanted to make sure the tattooed person will be able to read his own tattoo?"

The character shown on the leg is an upside down 鹿, which means "deer" in Chinese.

In Japanese, when it is combined with 馬 (horse); as in 馬鹿, it means "fool, idiot", and 馬鹿外人 means "stupid foreigner[s]".

Saturday, May 28, 2005

"One of my friends from high school recently got this tattoo. She claims it means 'Eternal Love'. I found 'Eternal' in my books, but could not find anything even closely resembling her version of love. Is it a translation I simply haven't seen before? I did end up finding a 'flash' version of this same thing online somewhere, but since I only saw it once, and it was flash.. I'm having a hard time believing. I'd love to get your input on it. :)"

The top character 永 means "long, perpetual, eternal, forever". The bottom character 疼 even though sometimes it is used to describe "dote, doting", but most often it means "aches, pains, sore".

Friday, May 27, 2005

"Tian, I am a realtor and these are in a condo a client of mine wants to buy. He's not wild about the tile mosaic around these tiles and is considering removing the whole thing. These tiles are on the facing of the breakfast bar. Do they say what is reported in English? Thanks for your help."

I have never seen "family" is referred as "亦作". Usually 家庭 is translated as "family".

Despite the poor calligraphy, this tile was my personal favorite. The character shown is the simplified version of 熱, which means "hot". Mixing the Chinese character with the English caption, the tile is "hot love". This tile would be a good sell on eBay.

"New Rule: Just because your tattoo has Chinese characters in it doesn't make you spiritual. It's right above the crack of your ass. And it translates to 'beef with broccoli.' The last time you did anything spiritual, you were praying to God you weren't pregnant. You're not spiritual. You're just high." (more)

Thank you for your message regarding the Old Navy Yangshuo Temple of Strength tee, #299500. We appreciate the time you have taken to contact us regarding the design of this tee. Please know that there is no special significance to the characters on our tees. We appreciate your feedback, and we have forwarded your comments to our merchandising and design teams.

If we may be of further assistance, please contact us via e-mail at custserv@oldnavy.com or by calling 1-800-OLD-NAVY. Our Customer Service Consultants are available 24 hours a day for your convenience.Sincerely,

Tuesday, May 17, 2005

Reader Bruce Spragg emails about a new line of Nike sneakers for Lebron James. This particular pair shown above is $320, and that is cheap! Since there were only 300 pairs of these made, sneaker pimps are selling them on eBay for as high as $9,000 according to news report (video).

So what do these four Chinese characters say on these "overpriced-toe-fungus-traps"?

The phrase means "self-suspicion" or "self-doubt". What a great way for Nike to rub "buyers' remorse" in these sneaker fans' faces and their empty wallets (except the sneaker pimps).

I am somewhat inspired by the latest trend of exclusive customized sneakers, Adidas has its Original Series, Puma has its Mongolian Shoe BBQ, and Nike has its NikeID, what about Hanzi Smatter?

Don't you worry, I have got that covered.

Presenting the HS Sneaker:

1. Buy a pair of sneaker of your choice2. Download and print out the Hanzi stencils provided here: "crazy diarrhea" "inferior goods" "ignorant" "idiot"3. Paste the stencil onto a piece of cardboard backing4. Trim out the black part of the characters5. Place the stencil along with the cardboard backing onto any surface or the sneaker6. Use color marker(s) and smear over the stencil, thus the design will be left on the sneaker

Sunday, May 15, 2005

"Hi Tian!!! Ok, here is my tattoo that apparently says 'Love'. I think ill cry if you tell me it says horse... ;-( LOL I'm kidding... Sort of.... When I got it they said it was an ancient Japanese Buddhist dialect I think called... Kanji? Or something? Oh I cant remember anymore... I'm very excited to get my new ones now... !!! Ill send you pics of the new ones when I get them In the first week of June. xoxoxo"

After I saw the photo, I did not recognize the character. I then forwarded it to my associates and hoping at least one of them would have more knowledge about the "ancient Japanese Buddhist dialect" than I did. At the same time I emailed Sonja back asking her about where she got the tattoo, and if the design was an original or from a template.

"I had it done in Toronto on queen street west, downtown. At New Tribe... You're worrying me!! I picked it there.. I spent some time in Japan (6 months) and when I came back to Canada I missed it so much so I wanted to get something to remember my time there. Maybe when I go in to get my new ones done I can get them to photocopy the sheet that it came from? Would that help? Someone once told me it says sex......?? Oh gosh... Now I'm worried. Just please be honest.. I know you will... Take care."

Friday, May 13, 2005

Yesterday I did a telephone interview about Hanzi Smatter with Mr. Hugh Chiverton of RTHK Radio 3. Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK 香港電台) Radio 3 broadcasts in English covers news, information, and general programming. It is similar in genre to BBC Radio 4.

Sunday, May 8, 2005

"My girlfriend and I were at Cornell University's Slope Day today, and they were offering airbrushed tattoos, some of which were in Chinese. Of course, she told me that half the descriptions didn't match the characters at all. I'm a longtime reader of your blog, so I snapped a photo so I could send it to you. Thanks."

My personal favorites are #38 and #41. That is because the person did not even bother to remove the horizontal bars above the characters. The bars used by the template's manufacturer to indicate "this way up" on the package.

#38 is the same as #35 which means "beauty" despite the misleading captions. I have seen #41 妥 before and it was featured here in Hanzi Smatter last October. When will these idiots ever learn...

Thursday, May 5, 2005

"I'm Japanese, and a friend of mine has this tattoo... she told me it meant 'poison' and I told her that it most certainly did not. Perhaps in Chinese it means something. I personally do not recognize it."

I used the similar font that tattoo was done, the closest character I have found is 妻, which means "wife".

The top portion is a typical way of writing the top of 毒, 青, and so on (here's a 精神, for comparison); the bottom portion has three main differences from the type version of 母: (1) it's rotated, so the verticals and horizontals are now angular; (2) the the hooked turning stroke is connected to the middle horizontal, and (3) the dots have been made into a line, which unfortunately doesn't extend below the middle horizontal (this is the main source of confusion, and is probably due to the lack of resolution the tattoo artist had to work with). I've sent you an image, Tian, of the two characters written in a font modeled after Qi Gong's handwriting; the 毒 is written in the same style as this photo.

Monday, May 2, 2005

The top two characters 中部 usually means "central". In geographical term, there is an area just south and south-west of Tokyo that is called the same. In Japanese, 中部 would sometimes also represent the "heart", as the equivalent of "center".

The bottom character 氷, despite it might look like a miswritten 永 (long, perpetual, eternal, forever), it is actually the Japanese version of 冰, which means "ice".